


WDWGILY

by summerwoodsmoke



Category: The Gifted (TV 2017)
Genre: AKA me adding five more strucker dreams to the season, Dreams, Dreamsharing, F/M, Missing Scene, Multi, Season 2 spoilers, spanning episodes 1-12
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-26 19:26:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17752028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerwoodsmoke/pseuds/summerwoodsmoke
Summary: This was far from the first time she’d had this dream, and it never changed. She wasn’t sure she wanted it to.





	WDWGILY

**Author's Note:**

> [title](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIqbn-dV8iM)

They were back on the roof again. Lauren ran to him, like she always did, and he turned to face her with a goofy grin, like he always did. This was far from the first time she’d had this dream, and it never changed. She wasn’t sure she wanted it to. She leapt into his arms. 

“Andy,” she breathed. 

“I miss you,” he said into her shoulder. 

She lowered her heels to the ground, pulled back so she could see his face. “I miss you, too. You know that.”

Andy’s face shuttered a bit, although he still kept his arms around her waist. “Yeah. I do.”

She reached up and held his face between her hands—a slight thrill of power from the skin-on-skin touch, but nothing like when they held hands. Nothing she couldn’t handle. She cradled his face, making him look at her. “And I’ll never stop wanting you back,” she said firmly. “Always.”

His hands tightened on her jacket. “Always?”

“No matter what.”

—

They sat on the ground, their backs against the roof ledge from where Lauren had once fallen. Both sat with their knees bent, Andy with his elbows on his knees, Lauren with her hands tucked beneath her knees. Keeping their hands to themselves, resisting fate just for a rare moment together. 

_Fate_. Was it really? Fenris? Could they really never escape it? Did they even want to? Could they never be together again without the power’s irresistible pull, and all its many consequences?

“Every time...” Lauren began quietly. She sniffed. “Every time I think of Atlanta, I end up hating myself.”

“We did what we had to do,” Andy replied by rote. 

“No.” Lauren shook her head. “No, I know that. I hate myself because even with all the guilt and the justifying and the dealing and moving on, I _miss_ it.” She ground her teeth together to stop her jaw from shaking. Then whispered, “There’s nothing I want more than that feeling back. Nothing except you.”

She heard Andy shift beside her. He didn’t say a word, but she knew he felt the same. _I miss us. I miss Fenris._ Lauren wrapped her fingers around her legs. She didn’t want to hold his hand, she _didn’t_ , because then that would mean panicking and disagreeing and fighting and the end of this. She just wanted to sit here a little longer.

They just wanted a little longer. 

—

Lauren walked forward into the dim light of the Inner Circle’s training room. She could see Andy in the dark, sitting in the centre of the floor, his elbows on his knees, his head hanging down. A dream. _Why here again?_ What, or who, decided that? How did any of this work? 

_I can’t stay here long, Dad might need me_ , she thought absentmindedly, and, like he heard her, Andy looked up. He looked wan, even for him. Tired and hurting.

“Congrats on your little bank job,” she said bitterly. “Really helped out the mutant cause there.”

Andy flinched, his hands tightened into fists. “It was an accident,” he croaked.

“Really,” Lauren breathed, raising her eyebrows. “Dozens of people dead, in an accident?” She thought of Atlanta, thought of fifteen people crumpled beneath the weight of a building, beneath the weight of their power, and knew Andy could tell what she was thinking. That had been no accident, and they both knew it. “It was Rebecca, wasn’t it?” she asked. He stayed silent, dropping his gaze down. “You brought all this chaos, riots and raids down on mutants everywhere, breaking her out of that hospital, and this is the result.”

He stared at the floor between them for a few seconds before rising to his feet, straightening till she had to look up at him once more. He was shaking slightly, not like he was cold or scared, but like he was full of energy he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, release. _Don’t you dare try to hold my hand right now._ She tightened her own hands into fists.

“You think I wanted this?” he finally grit out. 

Lauren nearly growled back. “How am I supposed to know, Andy? The last time we saw each other, you attacked me. I haven’t seen you properly in _months_. All you ever say is that the Inner Circle is building something great. You just won’t tell me what that _is_. For all I know, this is it. Blowing the heads off bank workers.”

“ _Of course that’s not it!_ ” he shouted, breathing heavily. His hands clenched and unclenched, over and over. He wouldn’t face her. Kept his head down, turned away from her. She circled the room slowly so she could stay in his sight. “That’s not why I left you!”

“Well, if the Inner Circle’s goals are changing,” she replied, no hope at all in her voice, “Maybe it’s time you reevaluate your own.”

No response. That’s what she’d thought.

She turned to go. As she walked away and the dream began to dissolve around her, she could hear Andy yell, could feel as he punched the nearest wall. Her knuckles twanged in pain. And then she woke up, leaving him behind.

—

“Where are we?”

Lauren looked up and saw Andy walking towards her. Another dream. Marcos had told them about Lorna secretly working with him, and she couldn’t let anything about that slip to Andy, she had to make sure he didn’t suspect anything. To keep him safe.

(Once upon a time, she might’ve refused to ever keep something like this a secret from Andy. But Andy had chosen a new family. Andy had attacked her. Andy had nearly killed a man, Purifier or no, and he’d enjoyed it, all in the supposed name of defending her. If she felt any vindictive pleasure from keeping secrets from Andy, she kept that to herself.)

She glanced around them—big stone buildings, grass fields, clean walkways, all completely abandoned of people. Looked down—a worn frisbee in her hands. She scoffed a bit. “CSU,” she answered, not looking up.

Andy stopped next to her. “Wait, like, in Charlotte?” She nodded. “Isn’t that, like—”

“Over six hours away?” She looked up and met his eye. “Yeah.” 

He furrowed his brow at her like, _Well, then?_ “Have you been here, or something?”

“It’s a long story.” She tapped her hand on the frisbee and tried not to think of Noah. “But yeah, I was here for a couple of days a while ago.” Then, to stop him from beginning to ask all the questions she could feel him thinking, she said, “Wanna play frisbee?”

He stared at her for a few seconds, like he was trying to study her out. He could probably tell how this place made her sad and angry and uncomfortable, which annoyed her. Luckily, he also seemed to tell how much she _didn’t_ wanna talk about it, because he nodded. “Sure,” he said, and began to back up, walking backwards. “Although I doubt you’re any better at throwing since the last time we played, what was it, four years ago?” He shrugged at her, in a _what can you do?_ sort of fashion.

Lauren felt a burst of affection rise in her chest. “Shut up!” she retorted, and tossed the frisbee to him.

“Bad!” Andy cracked as he reached out to his left and caught it. “You’re lucky your brother’s hand-eye coordination is so good.”

“Good? Yeah, right, I saw your P.E. grades.” He threw the frisbee back with a hard twist, and she fumbled a bit, but caught it. “Don’t even,” she retorted, and he laughed.

This was good. Calm. Relaxing, almost. They weren’t talking about anything that would matter when they woke up. They weren’t close enough to even accidentally brush hands. They weren’t worried about anything life-threatening. It was just...simple. Like when they were kids. Just the two of them, and nothing else to worry about.

—

Lauren blinked awake, dragging her hand across the sheets to rub at her eyes. She shifted from her side onto her back, then froze. The ceiling was painted a light blue, _not_ the colour of the cream ceiling in her family’s apartment. And the sheets...also blue, and a lot softer than what she had at home. Which meant...she must be asleep. And this, feeling far too solid and real to be a regular dream, must be…

She sat up slowly, scanning the room as fast as possible. Empty was the first thing she noticed. How nice and expensive everything looked was the second. The bed, the TV, the video game setup, the room itself. The window to her left had a beautiful sunset view of the city. _Where are you, Andy?_

“Lauren?” She turned to see Andy in the doorway. He looked...struck at the sight of her. Frozen. Scared? She rubbed the comforter between her fingers, resisted the urge to pull it up over her head and hide.

“This your room?” she asked.

He stepped in, just barely enough to close the door behind him. “Why are we _here_?” _In my room. In my bed._

She tilted her head at him and stared. “Like either of us have ever had control over the setting of these dreams before?”

He dropped his eyes and shifted on his feet. “Whatever,” he muttered, then walked a bit closer, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. After a few seconds of shuffling, he dropped down into his gaming chair. He glanced at her again. “You’re not gonna fight me again, are you?”

Lauren considered this. She didn’t _enjoy_ fighting Andy, per se, no matter how angry he made her. Last time they’d dreamt together, she’d still had the music box’s tune singing in her ears, Andreas’ words pulsing through her mind. _Two sides, light and darkness, always in conflict... As my sister and I battled, so must you battle._ She’d just...taken it to heart, she supposed. She would never admit out loud, not even to Andy, how wholeheartedly she wanted what the Von Struckers had had. Embracing who they were, being whole, together. Domination. _Destiny_.

She cleared her throat, gesturing at the room around them. “This isn’t exactly a space conducive to fighting, so I guess I’ll let it go this time.”

Andy laughed half-heartedly. He was looking at her like he couldn’t figure her out. Her thoughts must be all over the place. She sighed and rubbed her hands across the comforter.

“So, is this really what it looks like? With all this stuff?” She nodded at the game setup behind him. He nodded, a bit sheepish. _Mom was right, they’re giving him anything he wants._

“I don’t get _anything_ I want,” Andy griped, meeting her eye. Lauren blinked. It was hard to get used to this dream-bond. 

She put her hands up. “Geez, sorry. But seriously, a PS4 _and_ an Xbox One?” The Struckers shared a laptop between them all, and Clarice let her borrow her tablet sometimes, but that was it. Lauren hadn’t had anything more than a flip phone for herself for months.

Andy rolled his eyes. “Can we talk about literally anything other than games?” Lauren noticed his knees bounced a bit, unable to keep still. He felt...anxious, almost. Lauren couldn’t peg it as anything else. 

She sighed and shifted till she sat cross-legged, leaning against his headboard. She still stayed under the sheets, much to Andy’s chagrin. For whatever reason, unlike any of their previous dreams, she wasn’t in a dream-specific outfit—she was wearing what she’d fallen asleep in. Ratty t-shirt and even rattier sweatpants. She was staying under the sheets. “Fine. What’s up?” She couldn’t decide whether she wanted to talk about Fenris or not. What she’d found in the music box, and what it had done to her dreams...was unreal. But she didn’t wanna talk about Fenris, because she didn’t wanna fight with Andy right away. She’d let him lead for now. 

“Like!” Andy shrugged and slapped his hands on his knees. “I dunno, like how you and Mom nearly got captured by Sentinel Services today?”

Lauren was the one to roll her eyes this time. “It was no big deal.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Andy snapped. Lauren blinked, shocked. He went on, “I _felt_ it.” He leaned forward on his chair, staring at her. And now Lauren could feel what he had felt, and was thrown off-balance by the echo of her own feelings from earlier that day. Frantic heart rate, heavy breathing, sweat pooling at the small of their backs. Andy pacing in this very room, with the gut-sure feeling that something was _wrong_. “The Frosts told me what happened. What were you thinking?”

A wave of anger rolled through Lauren. “We didn’t run into Sentinel Services on _purpose_ , Andy. I was thinking I had to get Mom and I out of there, that’s it.”

“So, it was just an accident?” 

Lauren very carefully avoided focusing on what she and her mom had learned from Danny. “Yeah. An accident.”

 _This isn’t working_. Lauren’s brow furrowed. That wasn’t her thought. She looked up to see Andy rubbing his forehead like he was in pain. That hadn’t...felt like his thought, either. “Are you okay?” she asked.

Andy muttered something under his breath and sat up. “I was just...really worried today, Lauren. It felt like a close call.” And silently, she felt his desire. The thing he wanted that the Inner Circle couldn’t give him. It was _her_. His family—his _real_ family.

Lauren swallowed. This was about when their dreams fell apart. They tried to entreat each other to join them, the other got angry, and it was all over. She didn’t want it to be over. She still felt like Andreas’ note had been on to something, and she missed Andy. Everything to do with the Mutant Underground was a delicate balancing act she couldn’t talk about right now. She pursed her lips and shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. 

Andy’s face crumpled. “I know,” he said.

_I know._

_I know._

_I know—_

Lauren grabbed the covers on the other side of the bed and threw them back. In the same second, Andy was standing and moving around to the side of the bed, and the timing worked out perfectly so Andy could crawl under the covers as soon as he got there, sliding down and pulling the sheets back up as Lauren shifted to lie down again until they were both on their sides, blankets pulled up to their chins like little kids, gazing into each others’ eyes, searching and searching and searching for something they knew they wouldn’t, _couldn’t_ find. Lauren’s hands tightened into fists around the bedsheet in her grasp. No Fenris. Not tonight. Just them. Andy nodded infinitesimally, his eyes never leaving hers. _Just us._

_Try again tomorrow._

_Tonight, just keep me close._

As time passed, the sunset outside faded into black, and Lauren’s eyes grew heavier and heavier. Sleeping in a dream seemed an odd concept, but she let it go. _Will you be here when I wake up?_ floated through her head, and for a moment, she was sure it was her thought, but she realized it must be Andy’s. This was his room, his bed.

The realistic answer, of course, was _no_. But Lauren didn’t want that, not tonight. _One day, I hope. I hope, I hope._

_I hope._

**Author's Note:**

> i'm not sure how clearly it comes across, but the last dream is my take on the frosts' first attempt to manipulate lauren at the end of episode 12. they tried to 'pull' her close using the connection, and all they got was mental!lauren exactly where physical!andy was (lying in his bed), along with andy acting super cautious about the whole thing
> 
> thank you for reading! kudos and comments are much appreciated. if you like, you can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/alinastarkovas) or on [tumblr](https://tanosoka.tumblr.com)


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